


Five Minutes

by TheWhiteLily



Series: Season Four Premiere Flashfic [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: And sews in a few loose ends, Canon Compliant, Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Explains a few things, Gen, Missing Scene, POV Jim Moriarty, POV Mycroft Holmes, Plot Doctor Lily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9408536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWhiteLily/pseuds/TheWhiteLily
Summary: Eurus needed those five minutes with Jim for more reasons than you think.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve got a fair bit of timeline meta to go with this, but I’ll skip to the point. Both numerically and logically, this has to be the Christmas when Irene Adler faked her death (for the first time). So, Eurus’s five minutes would take place both before Mycroft’s ability to predict terrorist attacks was exposed at the end of Scandal, and before Moriarty’s incarceration during Hounds when he and Mycroft exchanged childhood memories. There may be a future chapter/story dealing with why their banter seems to imply the contrary--I considered adding a random extra Christmas Day into July 2012 to make it work--but I decided in the end it's probably easier to fix the plot than adapt the Gregorian calendar. But one plothole at a time, okay?

Jim spread his hands, offering himself up.

“I’m your Christmas present,” he told the woman in the cell.

He looked her over carefully as he closed the distance: the featureless white uniform; the lank, dark curls; the blank, pale face. The resemblance was plain—it looked like the Iceman had been telling the truth about his naughty little secret from his family.

Tut, tut.

Whatever puzzle he wanted her to solve for him, he must have been truly _desperate_ to allow this.

“So what’s mine?”

Shifting her eyes up at the camera in the corner of the room, she waited, and Jim smirked to himself. Of course this one wouldn’t like feeling Big Brother’s gaze any more than the other.

Her eyes locked back onto him, obviously having seen what she wanted in the eye of the camera.

_Five minutes._

“Redbeard,” she said.

Jim rolled his neck, and watched in fascination as she followed his motion, oh, she was _delicious_! Another Holmes: all that time, and he’d never even _suspected._

The Iceman… the Virgin… and the _Fruitcake_. Wonderful.

“Redbeard?” he repeated.

“He plays with you,” she said. “He never played with me. He plays with _you_.”

“Oh, he does,” agreed Jim, and licked his lips.

She tilted her head. “Does he know about that?”

A smirk stole over his face. This one was good. Better than the other two.

“Nah,” he shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“It matters to _you_ ,” she murmured, still only inches from his face. “Silly, weak humans. Why does he play with _you_?”

And she was stupid, in her own way, but everyone was—that was why everyone wanted Jim.

 _Four minutes_.

“Who’s Redbeard, lovely?”

She drifted even closer to whisper, her breath misting the glass. “ _You are_.”

“Me?” asked Jim, putting an ironic hand to his chest.

She moved backwards a fraction, speaking more carelessly now. “And his new one is. His landlady. His policeman. Pretty new toys to replace drowned Redbeard. I never could see the attraction in having a pet. Not if it wasn’t _Sherlock_ , don’t you agree?”

“I’m considering changing my mind,” Jim flattered, testing her.

She ignored the insincerity. “He was always my favourite, too. Did you ever know he wanted to be a pirate?”

Jim’s smile grew genuine at that, charmed. He could just imagine it: little Sherlock traipsing about with a wooden sword and a hat, saving the world one illegally seized boat at a time.

“I did _not_ ,” he said. He made loops of his thumbs and forefingers to use as emphasis as he drew out the words. “Best…Christmas… _ever_!”

“He loved fairytales, too,” she continued. “Rhymes, songs. I sang him a song once, but he still wouldn’t play with me.”

“I can fix that for you,” offered Jim.

He wasn’t even going to _ask_ for payment, other than this. Meeting Fruitcake Holmes might well be the most fantastic day of his life, _ever_. He was going to have to find some leverage to make the Iceman tell him more stories about young Sherlock and his very first pirate playmate, because… _awesome_!

“Oh, _would_ you?”

“Easy-peasy,” he shrugged. “I’m assuming you don’t need little old _my_ help to get out of here.”

She tilted her head, looking insulted. “Easy-peasy.”

_Three minutes._

“But you _do_ need my help with working out what makes him tick.”

“Yes.” She frowned, a deliberate action. “He’s strange. I never understood, apparently. Which one’s laughing? Is screaming so very different? They’re both…” She gestured. “Messy. And then I’d get in trouble. He was always the only one who wasn't asleep, but he didn’t think… _right_.”

“I know _precisely_  what you mean,” murmured Jim, and rolled his neck just to watch her dance with him again. She was _marvellous_.

They moved together as he considered the matter, eyes locked, riffling through and dismissing various options. Until... Culverton Smith— _please will you fix it for me to confess without…_ confessing—whose faithless Faith had tried to write a letter before the drugs Jim had suggested took hold. Perfect. Fruitcake could even pass for the daughter, if Sherlock was high enough.

He froze abruptly, stock still, delighted to find his dance partner halting at exactly the same moment, as though she’d seen it coming, as though they’d planned and practiced the precise point to stop.

“I’ve been saving something an old client gave me,” he told her. “I _suppose_ I don’t need it; Sherlock and I have always been able to make our own fun. You could be a damsel in distress; the perfect way to his heart.”

“Why would I want his heart?” she asked, apparently serious. “That’s…” she glanced downward at Jim’s chest, “more your area.”

It would have been a hit, if he’d been one of _them_.  But Jim had never minded being ruled by his passions, short-lived and changeable as they were.

“Trust me, lovely.” He smirked at her. “ _That_ ’s the way into a Holmes’s head.”

She looked at him blankly, then crossed to her bed and picked up the violin lying there, setting it to her chin but leaving the bow lax by her side. The poor thing, she was clearly even more at sea than the other two. At least the Virgin was close enough to it to notice his feelings if you slapped him in the face with them.

“Find his heart first,” he explained. “Watch his face when you make him break it, then you’ll understand. You can practice on these poor fools.” He circled a finger to indicate the compound. “He’s not so different to them. I’m sure you’ll work it out for yourself. How long?”

Because however enchanting she was, he was going to have to crush her if she tried to get between him and Sherlock. Easy enough, a few whispers in the right ears meant there were no doors closed to Jim, certainly not ones leading to a morsel as vulnerable as this little songbird in a cage.

Eurus glanced around her cell—less looking, more indicating the nature of the obstacles in her path. “A year, perhaps. More, to come at him in strength.“

 _Two minutes_.

Jim shrugged carelessly, not letting the slightest trace of satisfaction at her estimate show.  Too slow.  Oh, too  _slow_.

“Take your time,” he said. “I’ll be finishing my game with him soon; you’re welcome to him after that.”

And if by some chance Sherlock managed to outsmart him this time, it would be _glorious_ to sit back and watch them fight. She’d lose of course—the Virgin might be the dummy of the family, but he had it where it counted, at least compared to the other two idiots. Holmes killing Holmes; it would have been wonderful. It was almost a shame he wouldn’t live long enough to meet her.

“Tell me,” said Eurus, cocking her head at him. “Why do you do stay?”

“Stay?”

Her eyes were fixed on him. Jim widened his own eyes back at her, leaning close again, leaning _into_ it and letting himself drink in the sweetness of her insanity.

“ _Alive_ ,” she clarified.

Oh, she _was_ good. Direct hit. Pity there was nowhere for it to sink in.

“Honey, I’ve never just ‘stayed’ anywhere in my life.”

“Except here,” she said, that unblinking gaze still locked to his. It didn’t make _Jim_ uncomfortable in the least, but it certainly would have been effective on most. “You don’t want to, do you? Stay. Just _stay alive_. You never did.”

“Darling, that doesn’t work on me,” he chided.

That was the problem with the insane—and Jim met a lot of them in his business. They were fun, but… unfocused.

Still, one couldn’t expect them to stop. Might as well ask the scorpion not to to sting the frog.  Jim didn't mind.  He was no frog.

Of course that version was a corruption of the original fable anyway: perhaps Jim was closer to the turtle who had carried the scorpion across deep waters in the first version of the tale, whose hard shell no sting could ever penetrate.  

It lacked a little—joie de mort, that first version of the tale. A stern lecture for foolishness was never going to be as satisfying an ending as a murder-suicide.

But, sadly enough, no one ever _did_ get to Jim.  And no one ever would.

_One minute._

Eurus lifted her bow to the strings, maintaining eye contact as she played: a sweet, clear, familiar tune.

_… but life still goes on…_

Jim glanced down at his fingers, which had been twitching idly against his thigh, and then back up to meet her intense stare once more.

Oh, she was _very_ good.

“Betcha your brother can’t do that,” he said.

_… I can’t get used to, living without, living without…_

“I’d have to try him on something more his style, of course. Be fair. He’s not as hip as we are.”

_… living without you by my side…._

“It’s the final problem for you, isn’t it?” she asked, still playing, still watching him. “And then…”

_… I don’t want to live alone…._

She dropped the bow from the strings and stepped forward, flowing with liquid grace—and Jim moved to meet her until, but for the glass, they were all but touching.

“I’m sure you’ll work out how to fix it,” she whispered against his lips.

The moment held for a second… two… and then she broke away, turning her back on him and walking to her bed.

Jim shuddered, tingling all over with the delight of it. Oh, she was going to go _far_ , this one, now she’d decided to come out of her prison. It would have worked on anyone else. _Anyone_.  She was going to _break the world_ when her brother died.  Another reason to look forward to Sherlock’s fall.

“I’m touched by your concern,” he said, stopping just a fraction short of true sarcasm. “But this isn’t my first time. _My_ brother was a station-master.”

She set the violin back on the bed and pulled out a box of paper and a tin of well-used watercolour pencils. She sat on the floor, spreading them in front of her and beginning to draw: quick, sure lines near the edge of the paper that took shape in moments to form a young boy in a pirate hat, just as Jim had imagined him.

“You’ll make me some messages for him?” she said, filling out the lines of a tree the boy was half-hiding behind, and then began carefully decorating him with flames. “I’m sure he'll miss you. It would be a comfort to him to see a familiar face.”

Oh, the most glorious showdown never to occur!

“It would be my absolute pleasure,” Jim assured her. “I always wanted to be an actor.”

_Time_

“Sweet Jim,” she said, looking up from her work with a calculated, secretive smile. “You can go now.”

“Merry Christmas, Eurus Holmes,” he said, and smirked up at the camera in the corner of the room, whose red light had abruptly blinked back on again. It was going to drive the Iceman _wild_ trying to work out what they’d been talking about. “It was nice… _chatting_ with you.”

He would have to get to work immediately on recording some appropriately menacing messages for Sherlock. What a _fun_ project! Such a shame he’d be too dead to ever see them: but Jim Moriarty did always follow through to the letter on the promises he made to clients. It wasn’t _his_ fault they assumed they’d be getting something more than what they did.  After all, it was his nature.

And perhaps she could still use them, when she went to war against her  _other_ brother.  Holmes killing Holmes; it was inevitable at this point.  How delightful.

As he walked away, he deliberately stilled his fingers from twitching.

 _… so baby can’t you see?_  
_I’ve got to break free._

Really, that song was an earworm, and the Bee Gees were hardly better. He was going to have to look into adding something orchestral to his ‘Dramatic Entrance’ playlist.

* * *

Mycroft watched the form of Jim Moriarty all the way down to the beach; watched him climb onto the helicopter and lift off. He watched until even the speck in the distance disappeared, and then took the lift downstairs to see his sister.

“Well?” he said. “I’ve given you what you asked for. Do you have the answer to my question?”

She didn't move: she was facing the back wall and playing her violin, apparently lost in the music.

On the ground, a drawing had been abandoned some distance from the glass, but even upside-down at an angle Mycroft could make out the scene very clearly.

It was a cemetery—a common enough theme in her drawings about their brother. A headstone, bearing Sherlock’s name. His birthdate. Death date. _Next year_.

“Sherlock will die,” she said, without pause in her music. Mozart’s _Requiem in D Minor_ , Mycroft recognised. “I always knew he would.”

Mycroft put a hand over his face to shield his despair from the back of her head. A futile attempt. Eurus had never needed to look to _see_.

“You’re... sad?” she said. “Is that sad? Why are you sad? Oh!”  She turned in feigned surprise. Or was it real? It was hard to tell with Eurus, every expression she made was so deliberate, every movement a mimic of something she used to convey an effect. “He’s _your_ favourite, too! Does he play with you? No, he wouldn’t, would he. He never played with either of us. Too _boring_ , he always said.”

“Eurus, focus,” demanded Mycroft. “Is there _nothing_ I can do to save him?”

He examined her drawing more carefully—sometimes there was _something_ there, some clue she wouldn’t—or couldn't—elucidate. Behind a tree off to the side of the gravestone stood a familiar little boy in a pirate hat, barely visible amid the flames which engulfed him, rising from the centre of his chest.

“He’s always cared too much for his pets,” she shrugged. “Jim wouldn’t explain why. He thinks I won’t understand unless I find out for myself.”

Her bow froze on the strings for a moment, and she gasped.

“Oh! Can I try out Sherlock’s pet for my Christmas treat next year? He won’t mind, I'm sure; he’ll be too busy being dead.”

“Oh god,” mumbled Mycroft, rubbing his eyes.

Such a risk he’d taken: letting Moriarty into Sherrinford, explaining the nature of Eurus’s service to the government, letting them meet. _Unsupervised_ , at her insistence that he would know the difference. Such a terrible, terrible risk. This was no mere violin; surely there must be consequences. Echos on down the line, a price to pay in the end—and all for nothing. Eurus had never been wrong once, not that he was aware. Not about something like this.

In a few short months, Sherlock was going to die, and there was nothing Mycroft could do to stop it.

“You can’t have Doctor Watson for a pet,” he managed. “There are limits.”

“Are there?” she asked, curious. “Why? Does he matter?”

Mycroft gave her the look of condescension he felt moved to regularly by _both_ his siblings, forcing down the preemptive grief that crushed his chest. “You keep asking why you’re here, Eurus— _that_ is precisely why.”

He’d nearly reached the door before he heard Eurus’s voice rise again over the sound of her requiem for his brother.

“Mycroft,” she said. “I promised you an answer in exchange for my treat. You were always a little slow. Shall I go slower for you? Sherlock has to fall. He has to die. Jim won’t stop until he does. Why do you assume that he must _stay_ dead?”

Mycroft looked back at her, eyes widening. “Oh… oh!”

He thought for a second, feeling the yawning chasm in his chest slowly, painfully begin to close over, a gaping wound stitched together with the fragile threads of hope.

“I see,” he said. “Very clever.”

He moved back to the glass, eyes narrow and focused once more.

“What would you suggest we do?”

**Author's Note:**

> From _The Empty Hearse_ , when Sherlock is explaining why he’d let John think he was dead for two years:  
> SHERLOCK: Actually, um, that was mostly Mycroft’s idea.  
> JOHN: Oh, so it’s your _brother’s_ plan?
> 
> It doesn’t take a brain like Mycroft’s to be able to tell that inviting Moriarty to tour Sherrinford, telling him Eurus could predict terrorist attacks when he was going to extraordinary lengths to conceal that fact, and letting them meet unsupervised was a horrendously bad idea. A violin is one thing—access to Moriarty is on quite another level, even considered as a purely intellectual decision--which means unless there was something else in play it's a decision that canon Mycroft should have made correctly. We all know there’s only one thing Mycroft’s obsessed enough with protecting to take that kind of stupid risk. (Hint: it’s not the British Government.)
> 
> The fable of the scorpion and the frog—in which a scorpion convinces a frog to carry him across a stream, then stings him halfway across, causing them to both drown—is indeed a corruption of an earlier, less well known fable, in which the scorpion tries to sting the turtle carrying him across the stream but can’t penetrate his shell. When the turtle delivers the scorpion safely to the other side, he remonstrates with him for his foolish attempt, leaving the scorpion to explain as he does in both versions, that it was merely his nature. I'm afraid I have to agree with Jim that the turtle version lacks a bit of zing, don’t you think?
> 
> If you want more of my Eurus, you might consider [In Vitro](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12221598), or for more of my Moriarty, you might consider [Some That Smile](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9105382).


End file.
